promethean75 wrote:What would a rock need... what kind of property... to have some freewill?

I say 'some' because it's become a trend around here to believe that people can have a little freewill rather than a lot... or be somewhat determined rather than completely. This is of course due to a misunderstanding of what 'absolute' means... and more importantly, when and to what it can be meaningfully applied. While I am baffled by this strange use of the concept, I'm obliged to play along at the moment and ask: what would it take for a rock to 'sorta' have freewill?

Well, of you were any indiginous culture, this answer to them would be "duh" "every rock has its own rock spirit"

peacegirl wrote:If you are restricted due to moral or psychological objections you are not free to choose freely because free will implies you can choose what is distasteful in spite of a better option in your eyes

You cannot freely choose anything which violates your own moral code but you can everything elseFree will is therefore not absolute but conditional and it is within that domain that free will exists.

Peacegirl: You can’t have free will some of the time. It doesn’t work that way, just like you can’t be a little bit pregnant. But its really not a problem to say you were free to choose something. Everybody gets it even though nothing is actually done of your own free will. That being said, the importance of this debate revolves around moral responsibility. I have yet to show how the truth of determinism doesn’t lessen responsibility; it increases it.

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

peacegirl wrote:I have yet to show how the truth of determinism doesnt lessen responsibility

It would if determinism was absolute as then one could not be responsible for any decisions they madeBut it is not absolute as free will exists so we have to therefore accept responsibility for all our choices

peacegirl wrote:I have yet to show how the truth of determinism doesnt lessen responsibility

It would if determinism was absolute as then one could not be responsible for any decisions they madeBut it is not absolute as free will exists so we have to therefore accept responsibility for all our choices

Please hear me out! This discovery is a two-sided equation which I haven't been able to explain since everyone throws in their views. This absolving of responsibility if will is not free has been a stumbling block for centuries. If we can't blame people for hurting others, and we must excuse them, then they can easily get away with anything they want. But the truth is you can't have both free will and determinism. One cancels out the other. IOW, you can't be able to have done otherwise and not be able to have done otherwise. It's a complete contradiction. So how is this resolved? Compatibilism doesn't work because the compatibilist who said the wrongdoer chose freely (due to the lack of heavy restraints such as addiction or OCD and is therefore responsible) could not have chosen freely. So where do we go from here? Is anyone interested in this discovery or are people just interested in the old debate which has gotten us nowhere?

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

WTF? I was responding to Surreptitious's post. I think you posted on the wrong thread.

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

promethean75 wrote:Are you smoking crack, peacegirl? On the stem-fast diet?

ECMANDU said that, not you. You're starting to get thread-vision, man. Slow your roll or you'll end up like the rest uh dees suckas.

Whatever! I may be getting thread-vision!

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

iambiguous wrote:The entanglements here are in my view more about the use of language than the manner in which the language that we use is able to be demonstrated as in sync with our actual behaviors. Stuff, that, among others, Wittgenstein was pointing to.

I just take it back to the gap between the language that we use here in this exchange and the language that would be needed in order to explain how human interactions on this infinitesimally tiny speck of existence that English speaking folks call Earth are intertwined.

Which nature then compels you to dismiss as, what, incidental?

peacegirl wrote: The language gap can cause a problem as was shown by this author regarding how determinism is interpreted. Language caused a gap in understanding and it's the same language that is clearing the misunderstanding up so that we can apply this knowledge effectively.

That's not the language gap I am talking about. The one I focus on here is the one that you avoid like the plaque. It's the far more fundamental gap between the language the author used and the language that would be necessary to close the gap between what the author thinks he knows about these relationships and all that would need to be known [that could be known] about human interactions on this infinitesimally tiny planet in the vastness of all there Is encompassed in an understanding of existence itself.

You don't go there, won't go there. Why? Because there is no way in which you could possibly have closed this gap other than through all of the assumptions that he made regarding how convinced he needed to be about how unimportant it is to consider the gap at all.

It can't be an important consideration because taking it into account might bring those "intellectual contraption" assumptions of his crashing down to earth. The irony here being that from my frame of mind he was compelled to sweep all of that under the rug because psychologically nature had compelled to do that as well.

Then this rather typical exchange between us:

iambiguous wrote:You want it both ways. But in a manner I am still unable to grasp. You want to make a distinction between a domino not choosing to topple over and John choosing to set it up to topple over. While at the same time acknowledging that both the domino and John do only that which nature compels them to do.

peacegirl wrote: The only difference iambiguous is that a domino is being pushed by an external force. There is no external force pushing you, for example, to be here in this thread. You are here because it gives you greater satisfaction over the option not to be here.

iambiguous wrote:If the immutable laws of nature are behind every single interaction between matter -- that which I understand a determined universe to be -- the domino not "choosing" to topple and the human brain "choosing" to topple it are necessarily intertwined in the only reality able to unfold in sync with those laws.

The true mystery [for me] is how matter evolves into human brains actually able to confront human interactions self-consciously. As "I". "I" amidst the antinomy that is built right into dualism. We simply can't explain that yet. Or, rather, no one has successfully explained it to me.

peacegirl wrote:The topic that interests you is not a prerequisite to understanding that man's will is not free and what this means for the benefit of all mankind.

What on earth does this point have to do with my points above?

Note to others:

Is her point here a compelling rejoinder to my own? What am I missing?

iambiguous wrote:You keep wanting to make this distinction between "being able to make choices that comes from within, not from without" as though that which does come from within the human brain is somehow connected to realty in a way that is different from how all other matter is connected to it. For most this means God. But for you it means an understanding of nature that in my view you just make up in your head. Your own rendition of nature as God.

peacegirl wrote:It makes a difference since making choices from within indicate that external factors such as how you describe nature, or God himself, cannot force you like a domino to fall if you yourself (the "I" you call the self) don't want to make that choice.

That doesn't answer my question though. If the choices that I make are inherent, necessary components of nature's immutable laws the internal and external are just two inextricable sides of nature's coin.

Likewise, both those in the government making the laws and those not in the government obeying or not obeying them, would, to the autonomnous aliens, be like the characters that we watch in a film. Up on the screen they seem to be choosing behaviors here and now but we know better. Same with the aliens. They watch those in the government and those not in the government seemingly making free choices. But they know that Earthlings, being in a wholly determined segment of the universe, are really only just "choosing" to do what they do per nature and her inexorably unfolding laws.

Although, again, I'll readily admit I am not really understanding this correctly myself. But I'm not the one insisting that others must think about all this exactly like I do or be wrong. Period.

Indeed, it is this psychological need on your part for others to agree that you are always right about these things that, in my view, is the primary impetus behind your posting here.

The typical objectivist mentality. Only somehow in your head you entangle both the either/or world and the is/ought world in this utopian "progressive" future.

Me, I always come back to this:

iambiguous wrote:But this is still part of the mystery of minds actually able to create psychological defense mechanisms that sustain some measure of comfort and consolation. Some are able to concoct these intellectual contraptions in their heads that fit all the pieces together into a foundation solid enough in their heads to anchor "I" to. For most of course this all revolves around religion and God. But not for everyone...

peacegirl wrote:Intellectual contraptions to anchor an "I" to? I think you are projecting onto me your own intellectual contraption. But you don't see it.

Indeed. Only regarding both the is/ought world and questions as profoundly problematic as free will, I prefer to call them existential contraptions myself. Why? Because, in my view, so much of "I" here is embedded/embodied in the particular life that we live, rather then in that which science and philosophy can actually pin down as applicable to all of us.

iambiguous wrote:It really comes down to how you connect the dots between the things you want to do and the things that nature compels you to want to do. As though there actually is a distinction to be made in a world where all matter [including the human brain] is inherently connected to all of the dots that comprise nature itself.

peacegirl wrote: Ultimately, we are part of nature and we are inherently connected to the dots that comprise nature itself, but you seem to be stuck with the idea that you are a walking robot. This is the confusion surrounding this discussion due to the fact that having choice is not inconsistent with the truth of determinism IF it is defined correctly.

iambiguous wrote:I am stuck where nature sticks me. And that precious "definitional logic" you cling to is apparently where nature has stuck you.

peacegirl wrote: I'm not stuck. I know that man's will is not free and your idea of autonomy does nothing to prove it is free.

You just know this. And the fact that you do is proof enough for objectivists of your ilk. Whereas I would never argue the same about my own stabs in the dark here. Let alone profess to being able to prove it. You can't even admit to yourself the extent to which your own "proof" here revolves around all of the intellectual assessments the author makes in his own "definitional logic" assessment of free will.

Just as Tom Clark's assessment revolves entirely around the meaning that he gives to the words in his own "intellectual contraption". How has he actually demonstrated that this "analysis" is in sync with what, say, science has concluded [or failed to conclude] regarding the functioning brain in the act of choosing this rather than that?

iambiguous wrote:Here we go again. You seem to acknowledge that my insinuations about the author, like the author's discoveries themselves, are all at one with nature unfolding only as nature must given the universal laws that propel/compel it.

Yet you demand that I stop doing this with precisely the same inflection one would expect from someone convinced that I do have the autonomous capacity to stop.

peacegirl wrote: You do have the autonomy to stop if you want to, which only means you have the ability to stop if you want to. I've said this many times; autonomy does not mean free will. Additionally, determinism does not mean I can't express myself when I know that what you're saying about this discovery being an intellectual contraption of the author's making is an intellectual contraption of your own.

As long as you are unable to convince me that what I want to do here is not wholly in sync with what nature conpels me to want to do here, you are missing my point about the manner in which I construe autonomy in a determined universe as but the psychological illusion of actual choice rather than the fated and inevitable psychological reaction "I" feel in "choosing" to want to.

Your own wants as well here embedded in this assumption.

peacegirl wrote: Many philosophers believe that determinism means we have to be able to predict everything that is going to happen, which is false.

The mystery is still how nature has managed to evolve into life evolving into human brains evolving into human minds able to believe all sorts of conflicting things about this and many other interactions.

How it evolves further into minds [like yours] able to convince themselves that they and only they actually grasp all of this correctly while minds like mine are filled with all manner of considerably more ambiguous uncertainties.

The mystery is still nature itself going all the way back to how and why it became what it is or always was what it is.

Culminating finally in a mind [like yours] able to adamantly confirm that..

peacegirl wrote: You aren't obligated to believe anything if you don't believe it, but your disbelief won't stop this new world from coming about because others will understand these principles and want to help bring this knowledge to light.

Don't even think that you can dissuade this mind otherwise. It has too much invested in this "peace and prosperity" future.

Just as in the here and now don't even think that you can dissuade those who embrace Donald Trump's rendition of America's future.

That's why it must always come down to that which minds of this sort are able to demonstrate as true for all of us. And I can assure that mine can't.

peacegirl wrote: It's the same thing as saying evil is not evil when seen in total perspective, but we can use the term evil when we are identifying someone who has caused a heinous crime.

iambiguous wrote:Indeed, in my view, that is what is most important to you here. By your definition of determinism, we can still call particular behaviors "heinous crimes". By your definition of determinism those crimes become a thing of the past in our "progressive future".

peacegirl wrote: In total perspective evil is not evil, but in everyday experience, we can use the term to mean a vicious crime; vicious meaning with great rage.

In "total perspective". Exactly. Given that this perspective is seen by particular determinists to be encompassed in nature unfolding only as it ever could have given laws of matter it is wholly comprised of, good and evil are just "props" in nature's entirely scripted narrative we are compelled to call the "human condition". "Everyday experience" isn't just sometimes a part of all this and sometimes not. But to pin down how and why that can possibly be true? We simply don't know enough about existence itself to even begin to answer that.

iambiguous wrote:It's how you are able to actually think yourself into believing this that continues to escape me. As promethean75 noted elsewhere, that's what the discussion of free will really revolves around: morality. In other words...

Being able or not able to hold others responsible for the things they do.

Somehow in your head you want and you get it both ways. No free will...but evil is still around.

peacegirl wrote: Evil (hurt to others) is still around. If you want to omit the word evil, then do so, but I'm referring to a hurt. We still have hurt in this world even though everything had to be, but that doesn't mean that hurt and pain of this world has to continue.

If the human brain is matter entirely in sync with the laws of nature than saying that evil is still around is "for all practical purposes" the same as saying earthquakes are still around. The matter that comprises the shifting plates like the matter that comprises the human brain are just different configurations of matter compelled to unfold as matter -- all matter -- must. The fact that the plates don't "choose" to shift while we do "choose" to be good or evil, doesn't make the part about matter -- all matter -- being compelled go away.

Unless of course I am not thinking this through in the most reasonable manner. Which I readily concede may well be the problem here.

iambiguous wrote:But when I try to bring this all down to earth...

And that the behaviors you deem to be a prerequisite for "peace and prosperity" are precisely the behaviors that others hold in contempt.

peacegirl wrote: What behaviors do people hold in contempt?

No, my point is that different people hold behaviors in contempt as evil that others embrace as the embodiment of good. Abortion, gun control laws, animal rights, private property, gender roles, homosexuality...

Who decides which behaviors here reflect your "progressive" future?

Here you fall back on this:

peacegirl wrote: I get that iambiguous, but when this knowledge is brought to light, and everyone in the world can only benefit, government (controlling the masses by a few) will no longer be necessary. Most things will be privatized. Do you see how you're jumping ahead which is a problem for this author.

No, you don't get my point at all. It then comes down to whether you were ever able to get it at all. Up to now. And whether nature compels you to get in the next post or the one after.

You are always extremely vague here. When certain knowledge is brought to light and everyone grasps it then governments will disappear and "most things" will be privatized. What on earth does that mean with respect to an actual set of conflicting goods in an actual set of circumstances?

Then it's back to, "what if this and what if that?" Everything tumbling down into a future as you imagine that it must be in order to attain and then sustain "peace and prosperity".

iambiguous wrote:Okay, nature compels both the automatons and the guests [at West World] to do only as they were ever able to "choose" to do. But that's not the same as nature "programming" them?

peacegirl wrote: The word "program" is problematic because, once again, the wording implies that it's the program causing you to do what you do, which is false.

iambiguous wrote:How is nature itself with its immutable laws of matter not the program behind both? How is the program and the causal function of nature not one and the same here?

peacegirl wrote: Because volition still exists. Our agency is part of the causal process, which means we are not robots that are following a program like a domino.

Again: Bingo

How you understand this is not how I understand it given that human "volition" in my determined universe has no less compelled John to "choose" to set up the dominoes as it has compelled the domino to topple over.

The autonomous alien sees only what could ever have been on a determined Earth. The domino having no "agency" while the "agency" of John reflects the psychological illusion of having chosen to set up the dominoes instead going to bed.

John tells himself that he wants to go to bed instead of toppling the dominoes but he was no more able to not want to tell himself this than the domino is able to topple or not want to topple over. John either will or will not topple it in sync with the laws of matter compelling dominoes and brains to do what they must.

Thus:

iambiguous wrote:Over and over again you insist [from my frame of mind] that we take what we want to do out of the loop. As though the laws of nature do not compel some to think that what they want to do they want to do of their own volition. While others are compelled to believe that they "choose" to want what they do.

peacegirl wrote: Obviously, what we do of our own volition is not of our own volition if everything is part of a deterministic process, but even here the meaning of "I did something of my own volition" can still mean "of my own desire," even if at it's root one's choices are completely determined.

[/quote]

Again, as though the things that we want and desire are somehow out of nature's loop. Volition and desire being at one with nature but somehow just different enough to persuade enough people to embrace the author's discovery and thus usher in the author's own understanding of a progressive future.

He having been compelled by nature to discover how to distinguish between "benign" and "malignant" choices/behaviors.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

iambiguous wrote:The entanglements here are in my view more about the use of language than the manner in which the language that we use is able to be demonstrated as in sync with our actual behaviors. Stuff, that, among others, Wittgenstein was pointing to.

I just take it back to the gap between the language that we use here in this exchange and the language that would be needed in order to explain how human interactions on this infinitesimally tiny speck of existence that English speaking folks call Earth are intertwined.

Which nature then compels you to dismiss as, what, incidental?

peacegirl wrote: The language gap can cause a problem as was shown by this author regarding how determinism is interpreted. Language caused a gap in understanding and it's the same language that is clearing the misunderstanding up so that we can apply this knowledge effectively.

That's not the language gap I am talking about. The one I focus on here is the one that you avoid like the plaque. It's the far more fundamental gap between the language the author used and the language that would be necessary to close the gap between what the author thinks he knows about these relationships and all that would need to be known [that could be known] about human interactions on this infinitesimally tiny planet in the vastness of all there Is encompassed in an understanding of existence itself.

You don't go there, won't go there. Why? Because there is no way in which you could possibly have closed this gap other than through all of the assumptions that he made regarding how convinced he needed to be about how unimportant it is to consider the gap at all.

It can't be an important consideration because taking it into account might bring those "intellectual contraption" assumptions of his crashing down to earth. The irony here being that from my frame of mind he was compelled to sweep all of that under the rug because psychologically nature had compelled to do that as well.

Then this rather typical exchange between us:

iambiguous wrote:You want it both ways. But in a manner I am still unable to grasp. You want to make a distinction between a domino not choosing to topple over and John choosing to set it up to topple over. While at the same time acknowledging that both the domino and John do only that which nature compels them to do.

peacegirl wrote: The only difference iambiguous is that a domino is being pushed by an external force. There is no external force pushing you, for example, to be here in this thread. You are here because it gives you greater satisfaction over the option not to be here.

iambiguous wrote:If the immutable laws of nature are behind every single interaction between matter -- that which I understand a determined universe to be -- the domino not "choosing" to topple and the human brain "choosing" to topple it are necessarily intertwined in the only reality able to unfold in sync with those laws.

The true mystery [for me] is how matter evolves into human brains actually able to confront human interactions self-consciously. As "I". "I" amidst the antinomy that is built right into dualism. We simply can't explain that yet. Or, rather, no one has successfully explained it to me.

peacegirl wrote:The topic that interests you is not a prerequisite to understanding that man's will is not free and what this means for the benefit of all mankind.

Iambiguous: What on earth does this point have to do with my points above?

Peacegirl: It has everything to do with it. For whatever reason, you cannot or will not see that these two principles are correct. You won’t even entertain the possibility that they are corrects. Rather you keep reverting back to your mumbo jumbo when you talk about dualism, existence behind existence itself, intellectual contraptions, etc. and using these abstract concepts to reject anything the author says.

Iambiguous: Note to others:

Is her point here a compelling rejoinder to my own? What am I missing?

You keep wanting to make this distinction between "being able to make choices that comes from within, not from without" as though that which does come from within the human brain is somehow connected to realty in a way that is different from how all other matter is connected to it. For most this means God. But for you it means an understanding of nature that in my view you just make up in your head. Your own rendition of nature as God.

peacegirl wrote:It makes a difference since making choices from within indicate that external factors such as how you describe nature, or God himself, cannot force you like a domino to fall if you yourself (the "I" you call the self) don't want to make that choice.

Iambiguous: That doesn't answer my question though. If the choices that I make are inherent, necessary components of nature's immutable laws the internal and external are just two inextricable sides of nature's coin.

Peacegirl: I’m not disagreeing with that. But you’re still not understanding the distinction that creates the two sides.

Iambiguous: Likewise, both those in the government making the laws and those not in the government obeying or not obeying them, would, to the autonomnous aliens, be like the characters that we watch in a film. Up on the screen they seem to be choosing behaviors here and now but we know better. Same with the aliens. They watch those in the government and those not in the government seemingly making free choices. But they know that Earthlings, being in a wholly determined segment of the universe, are really only just "choosing" to do what they do per nature and her inexorably unfolding laws.

Peacegirl: Who cares if that’s how the aliens perceive us earthlings as making free choices when we’re not? What’s your point?

Iambiguous: Although, again, I'll readily admit I am not really understanding this correctly myself. But I'm not the one insisting that others must think about all this exactly like I do or be wrong. Period.

Peacegirl: I’m not telling people to think like I do without understanding the concept. If this is an invariable law and they say it’s not, they are wrong just as they are wrong if they tell me that one plus one is three.

Iambiguous: Indeed, it is this psychological need on your part for others to agree that you are always right about these things that, in my view, is the primary impetus behind your posting here.

Peacegirl: I’m hoping they can see the truth regarding these two undeniable principles. It’s not rocket science but it does take a willingness to carefully study the work, not just gloss over it.

Iambiguous: The typical objectivist mentality. Only somehow in your head you entangle both the either/or world and the is/ought world in this utopian "progressive" future.

Peacegirl: How can that be when there will be no is/ought?

Iambiguous: Me, I always come back to this:

But this is still part of the mystery of minds actually able to create psychological defense mechanisms that sustain some measure of comfort and consolation. Some are able to concoct these intellectual contraptions in their heads that fit all the pieces together into a foundation solid enough in their heads to anchor "I" to. For most of course this all revolves around religion and God. But not for everyone...

peacegirl wrote:Intellectual contraptions to anchor an "I" to? I think you are projecting onto me your own intellectual contraption. But you don't see it.

Iambiguous: Indeed. Only regarding both the is/ought world and questions as profoundly problematic as free will, I prefer to call them existential contraptions myself. Why? Because, in my view, so much of "I" here is embedded/embodied in the particular life that we live, rather then in that which science and philosophy can actually pin down as applicable to all of us.

Peacegirl: Only an immutable law of nature can be applicable to all of us.

iambiguous wrote:It really comes down to how you connect the dots between the things you want to do and the things that nature compels you to want to do. As though there actually is a distinction to be made in a world where all matter [including the human brain] is inherently connected to all of the dots that comprise nature itself.

peacegirl wrote: Ultimately, we are part of nature and we are inherently connected to the dots that comprise nature itself, but you seem to be stuck with the idea that you are a walking robot. This is the confusion surrounding this discussion due to the fact that having choice is not inconsistent with the truth of determinism IF it is defined correctly.

iambiguous wrote:I am stuck where nature sticks me. And that precious "definitional logic" you cling to is apparently where nature has stuck you.

peacegirl wrote: I'm not stuck. I know that man's will is not free and your idea of autonomy does nothing to prove it is free.

Iambiguous: You just know this. And the fact that you do is proof enough for objectivists of your ilk. Whereas I would never argue the same about my own stabs in the dark here. Let alone profess to being able to prove it. You can't even admit to yourself the extent to which your own "proof" here revolves around all of the intellectual assessments the author makes in his own "definitional logic" assessment of free will.

Iambiguous: Just as Tom Clark's assessment revolves entirely around the meaning that he gives to the words in his own "intellectual contraption". How has he actually demonstrated that this "analysis" is in sync with what, say, science has concluded [or failed to conclude] regarding the functioning brain in the act of choosing this rather than that?

Peacegirl: You’re setting up an epistemological error in saying that Tom Clark is wrong because science hasn’t found it in the brain. You can’t find the answer to greater satisfaction in the brain. This can only be seen by watching humans interact, although science is confirming that there is no free will through other experiments.

iambiguous wrote:Here we go again. You seem to acknowledge that my insinuations about the author, like the author's discoveries themselves, are all at one with nature unfolding only as nature must given the universal laws that propel/compel it.

Iambiguous: Yet you demand that I stop doing this with precisely the same inflection one would expect from someone convinced that I do have the autonomous capacity to stop.

You (the “I” you refer to as Iambiguous) do have the capacity to stop if you want to. There are no giveaways with my inflection.

peacegirl wrote: You do have the autonomy to stop if you want to, which only means you have the ability to stop if you want to. I've said this many times; autonomy does not mean free will. Additionally, determinism does not mean I can't express myself when I know that what you're saying about this discovery being an intellectual contraption of the author's making is an intellectual contraption of your own.

Iambiguous: As long as you are unable to convince me that what I want to do here is not wholly in sync with what nature conpels me to want to do here, you are missing my point about the manner in which I construe autonomy in a determined universe as but the psychological illusion of actual choice rather than the fated and inevitable psychological reaction "I" feel in "choosing" to want to.

Peacegirl: Autonomy is the ability to be independent but never really free of influences that affect choice.

Iambiguous: Your own wants as well here embedded in this assumption.

Peacegirl: What assumption?

peacegirl wrote: Many philosophers believe that determinism means we have to be able to predict everything that is going to happen, which is false.

Iambiguous: The mystery is still how nature has managed to evolve into life evolving into human brains evolving into human minds able to believe all sorts of conflicting things about this and many other interactions.

Peacegirl: It is cool, isn’t it? What this has to do with the price of eggs, you got me!

Iambiguous: How it evolves further into minds [like yours] able to convince themselves that they and only they actually grasp all of this correctly while minds like mine are filled with all manner of considerably more ambiguous uncertainties.

The mystery is still nature itself going all the way back to how and why it became what it is or always was what it is.

Peacegirl: irrelevant

Iambiguous: Culminating finally in a mind [like yours] able to adamantly confirm that...

Peacegirl: Man’s will is not free!

peacegirl wrote: You aren't obligated to believe anything if you don't believe it, but your disbelief won't stop this new world from coming about because others will understand these principles and want to help bring this knowledge to light.

Iambiguous: Don't even think that you can dissuade this mind otherwise. It has too much invested in this "peace and prosperity" future.

Peacegirl: I sure do

Iambiguous: Just as in the here and now don't even think that you can dissuade those who embrace Donald Trump's rendition of America's future.

That's why it must always come down to that which minds of this sort are able to demonstrate as true for all of us. And I can assure that mine can't.

Peacegirl: Yours can’t but mine can.

peacegirl wrote: It's the same thing as saying evil is not evil when seen in total perspective, but we can use the term evil when we are identifying someone who has caused a heinous crime.

iambiguous wrote:Indeed, in my view, that is what is most important to you here. By your definition of determinism, we can still call particular behaviors "heinous crimes". By your definition of determinism those crimes become a thing of the past in our "progressive future".

peacegirl wrote: In total perspective evil is not evil, but in everyday experience, we can use the term to mean a vicious crime; vicious meaning with great rage.

Iambiguous: In "total perspective". Exactly. Given that this perspective is seen by particular determinists to be encompassed in nature unfolding only as it ever could have given laws of matter it is wholly comprised of, good and evil are just "props" in nature's entirely scripted narrative we are compelled to call the "human condition". "Everyday experience" isn't just sometimes a part of all this and sometimes not. But to pin down how and why that can possibly be true? We simply don't know enough about existence itself to even begin to answer that.

Peacegirl: Evil is part of our present narrative but not part of our future narrative! I know you don’t believe me. Oh well!

iambiguous wrote:It's how you are able to actually think yourself into believing this that continues to escape me. As promethean75 noted elsewhere, that's what the discussion of free will really revolves around: morality. In other words...

Being able or not able to hold others responsible for the things they do.

Somehow in your head you want and you get it both ways. No free will...but evil is still around.

Of course evil is still around. We haven’t utilized this discovery or applied the principles!

peacegirl wrote: Evil (hurt to others) is still around. If you want to omit the word evil, then do so, but I'm referring to a hurt. We still have hurt in this world even though everything had to be, but that doesn't mean that hurt and pain of this world has to continue.

iambiguous wrote:If the human brain is matter entirely in sync with the laws of nature than saying that evil is still around is "for all practical purposes" the same as saying earthquakes are still around. The matter that comprises the shifting plates like the matter that comprises the human brain are just different configurations of matter compelled to unfold as matter -- all matter -- must. The fact that the plates don't "choose" to shift while we do "choose" to be good or evil, doesn't make the part about matter -- all matter -- being compelled go away.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but the fact that we have choice, although not free, is quite different than an earthquake where there is no choice. We can, given a changed environment, react differently due to different preferences. Earthquakes cannot unless we learn how to prevent them, which then changes the number of earthquakes. I understand your point of view. Just bear in mind that by creating a better environment for everyone through these principles, we can prevent the desire to hurt others as a consequence of being hurt ourselves.

iambiguous wrote:Unless of course I am not thinking this through in the most reasonable manner. Which I readily concede may well be the problem here.

I don't want to call it a problem, but it is a stumbling block.

iambiguous wrote:But when I try to bring this all down to earth...

And that the behaviors you deem to be a prerequisite for "peace and prosperity" are precisely the behaviors that others hold in contempt.

peacegirl wrote: What behaviors do people hold in contempt?

iambiguous wrote:No, my point is that different people hold behaviors in contempt as evil that others embrace as the embodiment of good. Abortion, gun control laws, animal rights, private property, gender roles, homosexuality...

Who decides which behaviors here reflect your "progressive" future?

How can there be gun control when there will be no more guns? How can abortion be an issue when the causes that lead one to want to abort will no longer be an issue. When it comes to animal rights, people will be more humane because they won't need to kill inhumanely to save money. Private property belongs to the individual who bought the property, just like someone who bought food or clothes or shelter. Your concerns are easily resolved once these principles are understood. Gender roles? Homosexuality? Who will be doing this judging? No one. You are coming from the vantage point of this world, which is why you can't believe it's possible.

iambiguous wrote:Here you fall back on this:

peacegirl wrote: I get that iambiguous, but when this knowledge is brought to light, and everyone in the world can only benefit, government (controlling the masses by a few) will no longer be necessary. Most things will be privatized. Do you see how you're jumping ahead which is a problem for this author.

iambiguous wrote:No, you don't get my point at all. It then comes down to whether you were ever able to get it at all. Up to now. And whether nature compels you to get in the next post or the one after.

You are always extremely vague here. When certain knowledge is brought to light and everyone grasps it then governments will disappear and "most things" will be privatized. What on earth does that mean with respect to an actual set of conflicting goods in an actual set of circumstances?

It's been clearly delineated in the economic chapter which you have no desire to read. Of course, it's only a blueprint but enough to get this new world off the ground.

iambiguous wrote:Then it's back to, "what if this and what if that?" Everything tumbling down into a future as you imagine that it must be in order to attain and then sustain "peace and prosperity".

peacegirl: Yes, but it's not hard to imagine because it doesn't take understanding what is behind existence and existence itself to be understood. It just needs to be shown how these principles work as we extend them into the economic world.

iambiguous wrote:Okay, nature compels both the automatons and the guests [at West World] to do only as they were ever able to "choose" to do. But that's not the same as nature "programming" them?

peacegirl wrote: The word "program" is problematic because, once again, the wording implies that it's the program causing you to do what you do, which is false.

iambiguous wrote:How is nature itself with its immutable laws of matter not the program behind both? How is the program and the causal function of nature not one and the same here?

peacegirl wrote: Because volition still exists. Our agency is part of the causal process, which means we are not robots that are following a program like a domino.

iambiguous wrote:Again: Bingo

How you understand this is not how I understand it given that human "volition" in my determined universe has no less compelled John to "choose" to set up the dominoes as it has compelled the domino to topple over.

We can agree on that, but you are failing to understanding that nature, as YOU, only chooses what you find preferable, not NATURE acting upon you as if to say regardless of what you want or choose is irrelevant because NATURE is forcing you due to a preset plan.

iambiguous wrote:The autonomous alien sees only what could ever have been on a determined Earth. The domino having no "agency" while the "agency" of John reflects the psychological illusion of having chosen to set up the dominoes instead going to bed.

As long as you understand that it nature and you are one and the same.

iambiguous wrote:John tells himself that he wants to go to bed instead of toppling the dominoes but he was no more able to not want to tell himself this than the domino is able to topple or not want to topple over. John either will or will not topple it in sync with the laws of matter compelling dominoes and brains to do what they must.

That's fine as long as you stop using the excuse that nature made you do something when nature didn't make you do anything. You did something because you wanted to, which is part of your nature to do. See the difference?

iamiguous wrote:Thus:

Over and over again you insist [from my frame of mind] that we take what we want to do out of the loop. As though the laws of nature do not compel some to think that what they want to do they want to do of their own volition. While others are compelled to believe that they "choose" to want what they do.

How can a person choose to want what they do? They either want or they don't want, which is not of their choosing.

peacegirl wrote: Obviously, what we do of our own volition is not of our own volition if everything is part of a deterministic process, but even here the meaning of "I did something of my own volition" can still mean "of my own desire," even if at it's root one's choices are completely determined.

iambiguous wrote:Again, as though the things that we want and desire are somehow out of nature's loop. Volition and desire being at one with nature but somehow just different enough to persuade enough people to embrace the author's discovery and thus usher in the author's own understanding of a progressive future.

You haven't the slightest clue what this discovery is about. Volition and desire are out of our control, which means the choice of one's own volition is not free, although in conversation it's okay to say I did this of own volition or desire, which does not me you had free will.

iambiguous wrote:He having been compelled by nature to discover how to distinguish between "benign" and "malignant" choices/behaviors.

I think most people know that to injure someone with blunt force is a malignant choice.

Last edited by peacegirl on Thu May 09, 2019 5:54 pm, edited 4 times in total.

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

peacegirl wrote:But the truth is you cant have both free will and determinism

Only where one of them is absolute as absolute free will cancels out determinism and absolute determinism cancels out free willWhere both are partial however and therefore do not impose up on each other at all they can easily co exist in perfect harmonyEven if you dont accept this you cannot deny that it is entirely rational

peacegirl wrote:But the truth is you cant have both free will and determinism

Only where one of them is absolute as absolute free will cancels out determinism and absolute determinism cancels out free willWhere both are partial however and therefore do not impose up on each other at all they can easily co exist in perfect harmonyEven if you dont accept this you cannot deny that it is entirely rational

It is absolutely rational to qualify your words when you say "you did something of your own free will" to actually mean you did something because you wanted to in the direction of greater satisfaction, which is the truth and that which gave you no free will at all, in the final analysis. You can argue until the cows come home, but the truth is the truth is the truth and cannot be argued away by logic.

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

peacegirl wrote:It is absolutely rational to qualify your words when you say you did something of your own free will to actually mean you did something because you wanted to in the direction of greater satisfaction which is the truth and that which gave you no free will at all in the final analysis

No free will involved before you decided to do whatever you wanted to ?Then how did you actually come to make that decision in the first place ?

peacegirl wrote:It is absolutely rational to qualify your words when you say you did something of your own free will to actually mean you did something because you wanted to in the direction of greater satisfaction which is the truth and that which gave you no free will at all in the final analysis

No free will involved before you decided to do whatever you wanted to ?Then how did you actually come to make that decision in the first place ?

You are free to decide which just means you are free to contemplate. But once you make the decision, it could never have been otherwise.

The term ‘free will’contains an assumption or fallacy for it implies that if man is notcaused or compelled to do anything against his will, it must bepreferred of his own free will. This is one of those logical, notmathematical conclusions. The expression, ‘I did it of my own freewill’ is perfectly correct when it is understood to mean ‘I did it becauseI wanted to; nothing compelled or caused me to do it since I couldhave acted otherwise had I desired.’ This expression was necessarilymisinterpreted because of the general ignorance that prevailed foralthough it is correct in the sense that a person did something becausehe wanted to, this in no way indicates that his will is free. In fact Ishall use the expression ‘of my own free will’ frequently myself whichonly means ‘of my own desire.’ Are you beginning to see how wordshave deceived everyone?

“You must be kidding? Here you are in the process ofdemonstrating why the will of man is not free, and in the same breathyou tell me you’re doing this of your own free will.”

This is clarified somewhat when you understand that man is freeto choose what he prefers, what he desires, what he wants, what heconsiders better for himself and his family. But the moment heprefers or desires anything is an indication that he is compelled to thisaction because of some dissatisfaction, which is the naturalcompulsion of his nature.

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

peacegirl wrote:You are free to decide which just means you are free to contemplate. But once you make the decision it could never have been otherwise

You cannot deny the existence of capriciousness and doubt and ambivalence

I’m not sure why you believe these emotions prove free will.

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

peacegirl wrote:I am not sure why you believe these emotions prove free will

They can cause a decision to be changed at any time which demonstrates free willThough they can also prevent one from being made which demonstrates no free will So sometimes it can be exercised and sometimes not depending on the circumstances

peacegirl wrote:I am not sure why you believe these emotions prove free will

They can cause a decision to be changed at any time which demonstrates free willThough they can also prevent one from being made which demonstrates no free will So sometimes it can be exercised and sometimes not depending on the circumstances

If you've been following this thread you would know what I'm going to say. Determinism does not mean your actions are preset before you make a decision, as if to say that you must choose a particular option that has already been prescribed for you without your consent. You could change your mind all the way up to the second you make a choice. This happens to me when I'm driving. I'm not sure if I want to go to the store and fight the crowds at that time, or go home and go the next day. I am hemming and hawing until I have to make a choice because the turn to the store is coming up. Whatever choice I make is in the direction of greater satisfaction rendering the other choice, AT THAT MOMENT, an impossibility, which is why will is not free. Again, don't misunderstand me. You can say I chose this option, of my own free will, which only means that nothing forced you, against your will, to make a particular choice. I say this expression a lot, but it must be qualified which I tried to do. It does not mean I actually had the ability to have chosen otherwise which is what freedom of the will means. It's amazing to me how many crazy definitions people use to try to prove free will, omitting the actual definition of what this actually refers to.

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

iambiguous wrote: If the immutable laws of nature are behind every single interaction between matter -- that which I understand a determined universe to be -- the domino not "choosing" to topple and the human brain "choosing" to topple it are necessarily intertwined in the only reality able to unfold in sync with those laws.

The true mystery [for me] is how matter evolves into human brains actually able to confront human interactions self-consciously. As "I". "I" amidst the antinomy that is built right into dualism. We simply can't explain that yet. Or, rather, no one has successfully explained it to me.

peacegirl wrote:The topic that interests you is not a prerequisite to understanding that man's will is not free and what this means for the benefit of all mankind.

iambiguous wrote: What on earth does this point have to do with my points above?

peacegirl wrote:It has everything to do with it. For whatever reason, you cannot or will not see that these two principles are correct. You won’t even entertain the possibility that they are corrects. Rather you keep reverting back to your mumbo jumbo when you talk about dualism, existence behind existence itself, intellectual contraptions, etc. and using these abstract concepts to reject anything the author says.

Which just takes me straight back to this: "If the immutable laws of nature are behind every single interaction between matter -- that which I understand a determined universe to be" -- then the author's discovery/principles, like my reaction to them, is settled law. The law of nature. You want me to be without the free will it takes to entertain these relationships only as you do, yet somehow I am still the one responsible for spouting mumbo-jumbo intead.

And then [compelled by nature as we always are] around and around we go:

If the choices that I make are inherent, necessary components of nature's immutable laws the internal and external are just two inextricable sides of nature's coin.

peacegirl wrote:I’m not disagreeing with that. But you’re still not understanding the distinction that creates the two sides.

Well, why don't you tap nature's immutable laws of matter on the shoulder, and inquire as to why I am not understanding this.

Likewise, both those in the government making the laws and those not in the government obeying or not obeying them, would, to the autonomnous aliens, be like the characters that we watch in a film. Up on the screen they seem to be choosing behaviors here and now but we know better. Same with the aliens. They watch those in the government and those not in the government seemingly making free choices. But they know that Earthlings, being in a wholly determined segment of the universe, are really only just "choosing" to do what they do per nature and her inexorably unfolding laws.

peacegirl wrote:Who cares if that’s how the aliens perceive us earthlings as making free choices when we’re not? What’s your point?

My point is this: that what any of us care about here in our determined part of the universe is only that which nature compells us to care about. Unless you reside in an autonomous part of the unviverse in which you really do get to weigh these behaviors and choose of your own free will to react as you do.

You speak [over and over again] of my "willingness" to do things...just as the free will folks would. And I'm still utterly mystified as to how this "works" for you in your head. Something about "once you choose something" it can never be changed. As though that isn't how it would work even in an autonomous universe. The point isn't whether a choice made is locked in, it's whether it was ever really a choice at all. Or only a "choice" embedded in the illusion of freedom that nature has somehow made possible having evolved [as matter] into the profound mystery that is human consciousness itself.

As long as you are unable to convince me that what I want to do here is not wholly in sync with what nature conpels me to want to do here, you are missing my point about the manner in which I construe autonomy in a determined universe as but the psychological illusion of actual choice rather than the fated and inevitable psychological reaction "I" feel in "choosing" to want to.

peacegirl wrote:Autonomy is the ability to be independent but never really free of influences that affect choice.

Yes, that's how I construe "I" as an existential contraption in an is/ought world in which human autonomy exist in some measure. In a determined universe however both your ability and my ability and the ability of all others is wholly a function of nature's laws.

Your own wants as well here embedded in this assumption.

peacegirl wrote:What assumption?

The assumption that human wants, desires, sense of satisfaction etc., are in turn compelled by nature.

The mystery is still how nature has managed to evolve into life evolving into human brains evolving into human minds able to believe all sorts of conflicting things about this and many other interactions.

peacegirl wrote:It is cool, isn’t it? What this has to do with the price of eggs, you got me!

Everything though...from something being thought of as cool to the price of eggs...is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of nature.

Everything that is except the manner in which you seem convinced that the author has discovered something about nature that, what, even nature is in for a surprise regarding? In other words, although human interactions going back to the caves has revolved around all manner of terrible pain and suffering, that will all be a thing of the past once men and women are somehow compelled to embrace his principles and nature itself is then somehow compelled toward "peace and prosperity".

How it evolves further into minds [like yours] able to convince themselves that they and only they actually grasp all of this correctly while minds like mine are filled with all manner of considerably more ambiguous uncertainties.

The mystery is still nature itself going all the way back to how and why it became what it is or always was what it is.

peacegirl wrote:irrelevant

Indeed, everything that anyone brings up on this thread that is not wholly in sync with your own "intellectual contraption" conclusions, is irrelevant. None of us are compelled to not doubt that.

peacegirl wrote: It's the same thing as saying evil is not evil when seen in total perspective, but we can use the term evil when we are identifying someone who has caused a heinous crime.

iambiguous wrote:Indeed, in my view, that is what is most important to you here. By your definition of determinism, we can still call particular behaviors "heinous crimes". By your definition of determinism those crimes become a thing of the past in our "progressive future".

peacegirl wrote: In total perspective evil is not evil, but in everyday experience, we can use the term to mean a vicious crime; vicious meaning with great rage.

In "total perspective". Exactly. Given that this perspective is seen by particular determinists to be encompassed in nature unfolding only as it ever could have given laws of matter it is wholly comprised of, good and evil are just "props" in nature's entirely scripted narrative we are compelled to call the "human condition". "Everyday experience" isn't just sometimes a part of all this and sometimes not. But to pin down how and why that can possibly be true? We simply don't know enough about existence itself to even begin to answer that.

peacegirl wrote:Evil is part of our present narrative but not part of our future narrative! I know you don’t believe me. Oh well!

Over and again: In your own rendition of "no free will" it is vital to be able to make that distinction between good and evil. We have no free will, but: But that revolves around the fact that once we make a choice to be either good or evil that can never change.

Whatever that means.

Whereas, from my own understanding of determinism, good and evil reflect only the embodiment of a human mind able to convince itself psychologically that the behaviors we are ever compelled to "choose", are still understood by us "in our head" as though we really were free to choose good instead of evil.

There can be no real substantive/existential good and evil because all of our "choices" can only ever be in sync with that which nature compels us to think, feel, say and do.

Thus:

Somehow in your head you want and you get it both ways. No free will...but evil is still around.

peacegirl wrote:Of course evil is still around. We haven’t utilized this discovery or applied the principles!

What I wouldn't give to be inside your head just long enough to understand this sort of thinking as you do. No free will but somehow evil is conquered by the principles that, in lacking free will himself, the author was compelled to discover.

peacegirl wrote: Evil (hurt to others) is still around. If you want to omit the word evil, then do so, but I'm referring to a hurt. We still have hurt in this world even though everything had to be, but that doesn't mean that hurt and pain of this world has to continue.

iambiguous wrote:If the human brain is matter entirely in sync with the laws of nature than saying that evil is still around is "for all practical purposes" the same as saying earthquakes are still around. The matter that comprises the shifting plates like the matter that comprises the human brain are just different configurations of matter compelled to unfold as matter -- all matter -- must. The fact that the plates don't "choose" to shift while we do "choose" to be good or evil, doesn't make the part about matter -- all matter -- being compelled go away.

peacegirl wrote:I'm not disagreeing with you, but the fact that we have choice, although not free, is quite different than an earthquake where there is no choice.

Different in that matter seems capable of evolving in truly astounding ways down through the ages. Ways we still do not fully understand. It's like the hard guys explaining how in the early universe there was hydrogen. Then helium. Then gigantic stars exploding and creating all the other elelments. And all these other elements evolved over billions of years into things like human brains and shifting tectonic plates.

But: what still applies are the laws of matter. Brains or tectonic plates or dinner plates. Matters does only what it it compelled to.

Yes, matter as human consciousness is a very, very different kind of matter. You, however, possess one of those conscious minds able to think itself into believing it understands all of this. Not only here and now, but into the future.

My own conscious mind however was compelled to go in a different direction. But only up to here and now.

Earthquakes don't "choose" to create the environment that actually brings them into existence. And nature might one day actually compel us to "choose" to prevent them.

But if won't be because we could have chosen autonomously not to prevent them and, of our own volition, freely decided to prevent them instead. Not given the manner in which I understand choice here in a determined universe.

And think about this part. There are actually folks who profit from earthquakes. Things fall apart and they are paid to rebuild them.

iambiguous wrote:...my point is that different people hold behaviors in contempt as evil that others embrace as the embodiment of good. Abortion, gun control laws, animal rights, private property, gender roles, homosexuality...

Who decides which behaviors here reflect your "progressive" future?

peacegirl wrote:How can there be gun control when there will be no more guns? How can abortion be an issue when the causes that lead one to want to abort will no longer be an issue. When it comes to animal rights, people will be more humane because they won't need to kill inhumanely to save money. Private property belongs to the individual who bought the property, just like someone who bought food or clothes or shelter. Your concerns are easily resolved once these principles are understood. Gender roles? Homosexuality? Who will be doing this judging? No one. You are coming from the vantage point of this world, which is why you can't believe it's possible.

I don't really know where to start here. You make all of these assumptions about what constitutes "progressive" behavior, and then merely assume that after folks in the future are compelled by nature to embrace the author's own political prejudices -- now called principles -- nature itself will finally "get it" and reconfigure all its old compulsions into the new ones.

From my frame of mind, this yanks objectivism up into a whole other category.

peacegirl wrote: Because volition still exists. Our agency is part of the causal process, which means we are not robots that are following a program like a domino.

iambiguous wrote:Again: Bingo

How you understand this is not how I understand it given that human "volition" in my determined universe has no less compelled John to "choose" to set up the dominoes as it has compelled the domino to topple over.

peacegirl wrote:We can agree on that, but you are failing to understanding that nature, as YOU, only chooses what you find preferable, not NATURE acting upon you as if to say regardless of what you want or choose is irrelevant because NATURE is forcing you due to a preset plan.

No, we are basically agreeing to disagree [so far] about how nature and its laws "work" insofar as we acquire these preferences and wants and degrees of satisfation. From my frame of mind these things are no less embodied autonomically. The human brain here is like the human heart or lungs or liver or kidneys. It's an organ that is in sync with the evolution of matter into life into consciousness.

I am less in nature than I am a part of nature. It's just the most mindboggling part of all. After all, how the fuck did matter manage to accomplish this?!! Most insist it is God of course. But I don't believe in God. But I don't know if I don't believe in Him only because I was never actually able to choose freely to believe in Him.

iambiguous wrote:John tells himself that he wants to go to bed instead of toppling the dominoes but he was no more able to not want to tell himself this than the domino is able to topple or not want to topple over. John either will or will not topple it in sync with the laws of matter compelling dominoes and brains to do what they must.

peacegirl wrote:That's fine as long as you stop using the excuse that nature made you do something when nature didn't make you do anything. You did something because you wanted to, which is part of your nature to do. See the difference?

That's fine if nature compels me to stop using it as an excuse. Or if nature compels you to understand that "for all practical purposes" there really is no difference.

iamiguous wrote:Over and over again you insist [from my frame of mind] that we take what we want to do out of the loop. As though the laws of nature do not compel some to think that what they want to do they want to do of their own volition. While others are compelled to believe that they "choose" to want what they do.

peacegirl wrote:How can a person choose to want what they do? They either want or they don't want, which is not of their choosing.

Exactly. Well, at least until you attempt to explain how, when you take this "general description" out of your head, it is implicated in the actual choices/"choices" that we make.

Consequently...

iambiguous wrote:...as though the things that we want and desire are somehow out of nature's loop. Volition and desire being at one with nature but somehow just different enough to persuade enough people to embrace the author's discovery and thus usher in the author's own understanding of a progressive future.

peacegirl wrote:You haven't the slightest clue what this discovery is about.

Tell that to nature. And then have nature explain this...

peacegirl wrote:Volition and desire are out of our control, which means the choice of one's own volition is not free, although in conversation it's okay to say I did this of own volition or desire, which does not me[an] you had free will.

...to me. It's like hearing something that I would say myself!

Only its meaning being basically the opposite of what I think I mean myself here and now.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

iambiguous wrote: If the immutable laws of nature are behind every single interaction between matter -- that which I understand a determined universe to be -- the domino not "choosing" to topple and the human brain "choosing" to topple it are necessarily intertwined in the only reality able to unfold in sync with those laws.

The true mystery [for me] is how matter evolves into human brains actually able to confront human interactions self-consciously. As "I". "I" amidst the antinomy that is built right into dualism. We simply can't explain that yet. Or, rather, no one has successfully explained it to me.

peacegirl wrote:The topic that interests you is not a prerequisite to understanding that man's will is not free and what this means for the benefit of all mankind.

iambiguous wrote: What on earth does this point have to do with my points above?

The true mystery regarding how matter evolves into human brains able to confront human interactions self-consciously is, in my mind, an intellectual contraption that is preventing you from showing any real interest in this discovery. And I realize your way of responding is all it could ever be.

peacegirl wrote:It has everything to do with it. For whatever reason, you cannot or will not see that these two principles are correct. You won’t even entertain the possibility that they are corrects. Rather you keep reverting back to your mumbo jumbo when you talk about dualism, existence behind existence itself, intellectual contraptions, etc. and using these abstract concepts to reject anything the author says.

iambiguous wrote:Which just takes me straight back to this: "If the immutable laws of nature are behind every single interaction between matter -- that which I understand a determined universe to be" -- then the author's discovery/principles, like my reaction to them, is settled law. The law of nature. You want me to be without the free will it takes to entertain these relationships only as you do, yet somehow I am still the one responsible for spouting mumbo-jumbo intead.

Even if what you're saying is mumbo jumbo or not, you can't help yourself.

iambiguous wrote:And then [compelled by nature as we always are] around and around we go:

If the choices that I make are inherent, necessary components of nature's immutable laws the internal and external are just two inextricable sides of nature's coin.

peacegirl wrote:I’m not disagreeing with that. But you’re still not understanding the distinction that creates the two sides.

iambiguous wrote:Well, why don't you tap nature's immutable laws of matter on the shoulder, and inquire as to why I am not understanding this.

It's not up to me. I'm not even disagreeing with the fact that nature's immutable laws are immutable. But you refuse to understand that nature (as described as a separate entity, not you as nature) cannot force a choice on you. Only when you permit a choice to be made, CAN IT BE MADE. Nature can't say, "No iambiguous, that choice is not in the plan. You MUST make this choice.

Likewise, both those in the government making the laws and those not in the government obeying or not obeying them, would, to the autonomous aliens, be like the characters that we watch in a film. Up on the screen they seem to be choosing behaviors here and now but we know better. Same with the aliens. They watch those in the government and those not in the government seemingly making free choices. But they know that Earthlings, being in a wholly determined segment of the universe, are really only just "choosing" to do what they do per nature and her inexorably unfolding laws.

peacegirl wrote:Who cares if that’s how the aliens perceive us earthlings as making free choices when we’re not? What’s your point?

iambiguous wrote:My point is this: that what any of us care about here in our determined part of the universe is only that which nature compells us to care about. Unless you reside in an autonomous part of the unviverse in which you really do get to weigh these behaviors and choose of your own free will to react as you do.

You still don't get it. YOU (the "I" that gets to choose) does not mean you are separate from the immutable laws of nature that compel you to choose what you MUST choose in the direction of greater satisfaction.

iambiguous wrote:You speak [over and over again] of my "willingness" to do things...just as the free will folks would. And I'm still utterly mystified as to how this "works" for you in your head. Something about "once you choose something" it can never be changed. As though that isn't how it would work even in an autonomous universe. The point isn't whether a choice made is locked in, it's whether it was ever really a choice at all. Or only a "choice" embedded in the illusion of freedom that nature has somehow made possible having evolved [as matter] into the profound mystery that is human consciousness itself.

It depends how you interpret the word choice. We are able to contemplate options, which many call choice, but our choice is never free because we can only go in one direction; therefore it is an illusion.

As long as you are unable to convince me that what I want to do here is not wholly in sync with what nature conpels me to want to do here, you are missing my point about the manner in which I construe autonomy in a determined universe as but the psychological illusion of actual choice rather than the fated and inevitable psychological reaction "I" feel in "choosing" to want to.

peacegirl wrote:Autonomy is the ability to be independent but never really free of influences that affect choice.

iambiguous wrote:Yes, that's how I construe "I" as an existential contraption in an is/ought world in which human autonomy exist in some measure. In a determined universe however both your ability and my ability and the ability of all others is wholly a function of nature's laws.

Everything is a function of nature's laws because we are part of these laws. You cannot separate them. The "I" or self that separates us from each other does not mean we can't make choices, which is consistent with nature's law of greater satisfaction.

All of human wants, desires, sense of satisfaction, etc, are compelled by nature. The only thing I'm trying to get you to see is that nature does not cause you to do anything, as if nature is something outside of yourself with a software program already set before you make a choice. For example, you chose to run a red light therefore you are responsible for stepping on the accelerator. Nature (as a separate from you) did not make you push on the accelerator. Therefore, who is responsible for pushing on the accelerator? YOU ARE, not in a blameworthy way, but YOU ARE responsible because you performed the action. IOW, you can't shift your responsibility to nature by saying nature made you step on the accelerator even though you didn't want to. You did it because this was your desire at that moment. This is important because although will is not free, nothing can make or force us to do anything we ourselves do not want to do.

The mystery is still how nature has managed to evolve into life evolving into human brains evolving into human minds able to believe all sorts of conflicting things about this and many other interactions.

peacegirl wrote:It is cool, isn’t it? What this has to do with the price of eggs, you got me!

iambiguous wrote:Everything though...from something being thought of as cool to the price of eggs...is but an inherent, necessary manifestation of nature.

Everything that is except the manner in which you seem convinced that the author has discovered something about nature that, what, even nature is in for a surprise regarding? In other words, although human interactions going back to the caves has revolved around all manner of terrible pain and suffering, that will all be a thing of the past once men and women are somehow compelled to embrace his principles and nature itself is then somehow compelled toward "peace and prosperity".

Once again, you talk about nature as if it's something apart from ourselves. Of course nature, or ourselves, as part of nature, are compelled to want and desire what we have no control over. But the most important thing I am trying to express is that we are given the ability to agree to what we want; to give permission to what we want. Nature, as it appears from your posts, cannot make you choose an option that you don't want. Therefore, you cannot say nature made me choose to hurt someone. No, you hurt someone not because nature made you do it but because you wanted to, in the direction of what gave you greater satisfaction. You and me know this person couldn't help himself, but we also know that nothing made him choose this option if he didn't want to, because nothing can do that.

How it evolves further into minds [like yours] able to convince themselves that they and only they actually grasp all of this correctly while minds like mine are filled with all manner of considerably more ambiguous uncertainties.

The mystery is still nature itself going all the way back to how and why it became what it is or always was what it is.

Nature going all the way back only means life could not have unfolded any other way.

peacegirl wrote:irrelevant

iambiguous wrote:Indeed, everything that anyone brings up on this thread that is not wholly in sync with your own "intellectual contraption" conclusions, is irrelevant. None of us are compelled to not doubt that.

Why something occurs is less important than asking how something occurs. Have you ever heard the expression: Y is a crooked letter?

peacegirl wrote: It's the same thing as saying evil is not evil when seen in total perspective, but we can use the term evil when we are identifying someone who has caused a heinous crime.

iambiguous wrote:Indeed, in my view, that is what is most important to you here. By your definition of determinism, we still call particular behaviors "heinous crimes". By your definition of determinism those crimes become a thing of the past in our "progressive future".

peacegirl wrote: In total perspective evil is not evil, but in everyday experience, we can use the term to mean a vicious crime; vicious meaning with great rage.

In "total perspective". Exactly. Given that this perspective is seen by particular determinists to be encompassed in nature unfolding only as it ever could have given laws of matter it is wholly comprised of, good and evil are just "props" in nature's entirely scripted narrative we are compelled to call the "human condition". "Everyday experience" isn't just sometimes a part of all this and sometimes not. But to pin down how and why that can possibly be true? We simply don't know enough about existence itself to even begin to answer that.

peacegirl wrote:Evil is part of our present narrative but not part of our future narrative! I know you don’t believe me. Oh well!

iambiguous wrote:Over and again: In your own rendition of "no free will" it is vital to be able to make that distinction between good and evil. We have no free will, but: But that revolves around the fact that once we make a choice to be either good or evil that can never change.

Whatever that means.

It's important to focus on good and evil (hurt) because that's the issue iambiguous. Compatibilists and libertarians are not interested in what you chose for breakfast. They are interested in what you did that they believe you didn't have to do, and that involves doing something that society considers a wrongdoing.

iambiguous wrote:Whereas, from my own understanding of determinism, good and evil reflect only the embodiment of a human mind able to convince itself psychologically that the behaviors we are ever compelled to "choose", are still understood by us "in our head" as though we really were free to choose good instead of evil.

I agree. We are not free to choose good over evil if evil is what we prefer for reasons that may not be understood by psychologists. Free will is the illusion and that is why compatibilism doesn't fly.

iambiguous wrote:There can be no real substantive/existential good and evil because all of our "choices" can only ever be in sync with that which nature compels us to think, feel, say and do.

That is true, but if we can veer in a different direction creating the desire (but still in the direction of greater satisfaction) to choose what is not evil (hurt) and prefer choosing good (not hurting anyone), that is a very good thing.

iambiguous wrote:Thus:

Somehow in your head you want and you get it both ways. No free will...but evil is still around.

Evil is still around because people still prefer evil, for whatever reason. The only way peace can come about is if people don't prefer evil in preference to good.

peacegirl wrote:Of course evil is still around. We haven’t utilized this discovery or applied the principles!

iambiguous wrote:What I wouldn't give to be inside your head just long enough to understand this sort of thinking as you do. No free will but somehow evil is conquered by the principles that, in lacking free will himself, the author was compelled to discover.

What can I say? The author was compelled to make this discovery, not of his own free will, and by discovering this law and showing what occurs when applied globally, all evil (war, crime, poverty, etc.) can be eliminated.

peacegirl wrote: Evil (hurt to others) is still around. If you want to omit the word evil, then do so, but I'm referring to a hurt. We still have hurt in this world even though everything had to be, but that doesn't mean that hurt and pain of this world has to continue.

iambiguous wrote:If the human brain is matter entirely in sync with the laws of nature than saying that evil is still around is "for all practical purposes" the same as saying earthquakes are still around. The matter that comprises the shifting plates like the matter that comprises the human brain are just different configurations of matter compelled to unfold as matter -- all matter -- must. The fact that the plates don't "choose" to shift while we do "choose" to be good or evil, doesn't make the part about matter -- all matter -- being compelled go away.

peacegirl wrote:I'm not disagreeing with you, but the fact that we have choice, although not free, is quite different than an earthquake where there is no choice.

iambiguous wrote:Different in that matter seems capable of evolving in truly astounding ways down through the ages. Ways we still do not fully understand. It's like the hard guys explaining how in the early universe there was hydrogen. Then helium. Then gigantic stars exploding and creating all the other elelments. And all these other elements evolved over billions of years into things like human brains and shifting tectonic plates.

But: what still applies are the laws of matter. Brains or tectonic plates or dinner plates. Matters does only what it it compelled to.

Yes, matter as human consciousness is a very, very different kind of matter. You, however, possess one of those conscious minds able to think itself into believing it understands all of this. Not only here and now, but into the future.

All the author did was to show where the knowledge that man's will is not free and what this means, as we apply the principles that follow, can prevent the conflicts that lead to war and crime.

iambiguous wrote:My own conscious mind however was compelled to go in a different direction. But only up to here and now.

Earthquakes don't "choose" to create the environment that actually brings them into existence. And nature might one day actually compel us to "choose" to prevent them.

But if won't be because we could have chosen autonomously not to prevent them and, of our own volition, freely decided to prevent them instead. Not given the manner in which I understand choice here in a determined universe.

I agree with you. When I use the phrase I did this of my own volition or of my own free will, which I've stated numerous times, it only means I did something of my own desire because that was my choice (in the direction of greater satisfaction), but it does not mean "I actually chose anything of my own free will" in the sense that I could have chosen otherwise.

iambiguous wrote:And think about this part. There are actually folks who profit from earthquakes. Things fall apart and they are paid to rebuild them.

That is true, but if we can find a way to prevent earthquakes, we don't allow them to occur just to keep people in business. In the new world, no one will be hurt economically if they lose their job. Many jobs are going to be displaced because there won't be a need for them.

iambiguous wrote:...my point is that different people hold behaviors in contempt as evil that others embrace as the embodiment of good. Abortion, gun control laws, animal rights, private property, gender roles, homosexuality...

Who decides which behaviors here reflect your "progressive" future?

No one decides which behaviors are allowed and which ones are not. Is that what you're asking?

peacegirl wrote:How can there be gun control when there will be no more guns? How can abortion be an issue when the causes that lead one to want to abort will no longer be an issue. When it comes to animal rights, people will be more humane because they won't need to kill inhumanely to save money. Private property belongs to the individual who bought the property, just like someone who bought food or clothes or shelter. Your concerns are easily resolved once these principles are understood. Gender roles? Homosexuality? Who will be doing this judging? No one. You are coming from the vantage point of this world, which is why you can't believe it's possible.

iambiguous wrote:I don't really know where to start here. You make all of these assumptions about what constitutes "progressive" behavior, and then merely assume that after folks in the future are compelled by nature to embrace the author's own political prejudices -- now called principles -- nature itself will finally "get it" and reconfigure all its old compulsions into the new ones.

These are not the author's ideas that are made up of opinions and prejudices. This is a natural law, but no one has taken this knowledge far enough to see where it leads us.

iambiguous wrote:From my frame of mind, this yanks objectivism up into a whole other category.

I've said this more than once: there is no standard of behavior except this hurting of others.

There is no mathematical standard as to what is right and wrongin human conduct except this hurting of others, and once this isremoved, once it becomes impossible to desire hurting another, thenwhatever value existed in asking for and giving advice has beenpermanently done away with.

peacegirl wrote: Because volition still exists. Our agency is part of the causal process, which means we are not robots that are following a program like a domino.

iambiguous wrote:Again: Bingo

How you understand this is not how I understand it given that human "volition" in my determined universe has no less compelled John to "choose" to set up the dominoes as it has compelled the domino to topple over.

peacegirl wrote:We can agree on that, but you are failing to understanding that nature, as YOU, only chooses what you find preferable, not NATURE acting upon you as if to say regardless of what you want or choose is irrelevant because NATURE is forcing you due to a preset plan.

iambiguous wrote:No, we are basically agreeing to disagree [so far] about how nature and its laws "work" insofar as we acquire these preferences and wants and degrees of satisfation. From my frame of mind these things are no less embodied autonomically. The human brain here is like the human heart or lungs or liver or kidneys. It's an organ that is in sync with the evolution of matter into life into consciousness.

It is true that what we do is in sync with nature's laws just as the heart and lungs, but to say that nature compelled you to do something is misleading. Nature compelled you to desire such and such, which is true. Your desire involves your permission to do such and such. IOW, your permission to perform an action means you are responsible for performing said action. It does not mean you are morally responsible (that's not what I'm referring to) because we know you couldn't help yourself since your will is not free. Let me know when we can move on, if you so desire. This thread is getting stale.

iambiguous wrote:I am less in nature than I am a part of nature. It's just the most mindboggling part of all. After all, how the fuck did matter manage to accomplish this?!! Most insist it is God of course. But I don't believe in God. But I don't know if I don't believe in Him only because I was never actually able to choose freely to believe in Him.

It doesn't matter for the purposes of this knowledge why we came to be the way we are. What matters is how we can use knowledge to better our world in ways that are hard to imagine. But you should never be that extremely skeptical that you refuse to listen.

iambiguous wrote:John tells himself that he wants to go to bed instead of toppling the dominoes but he was no more able to not want to tell himself this than the domino is able to topple or not want to topple over. John either will or will not topple it in sync with the laws of matter compelling dominoes and brains to do what they must.

peacegirl wrote:That's fine as long as you stop using the excuse that nature made you do something when nature didn't make you do anything. You did something because you wanted to, which is part of your nature to do. See the difference?

iambiguous wrote:That's fine if nature compels me to stop using it as an excuse. Or if nature compels you to understand that "for all practical purposes" there really is no difference.

Your nature is compelling you not to see the difference. There is no difference in the sense that we are compelled to do what we do. The only difference is that you are responsible for what you do, because nothing can compel you to do what you don't want to do. It's as simple as that.

iamiguous wrote:Over and over again you insist [from my frame of mind] that we take what we want to do out of the loop. As though the laws of nature do not compel some to think that what they want to do they want to do of their own volition. While others are compelled to believe that they "choose" to want what they do.

peacegirl wrote:How can a person choose to want what they do? They either want or they don't want, which is not of their choosing.

iamiguous wrote:Exactly. Well, at least until you attempt to explain how, when you take this "general description" out of your head, it is implicated in the actual choices/"choices" that we make.

Consequently...

...as though the things that we want and desire are somehow out of nature's loop. Volition and desire being at one with nature but somehow just different enough to persuade enough people to embrace the author's discovery and thus usher in the author's own understanding of a progressive future.

People can believe anything they want. They can even believe that one plus one is three until they begin to build a bridge based on bad math and it collapses. If people know for a fact that will is not free and the benefits that can be derived from this knowledge, they will want to apply it to our world because we cannot choose what is worse for ourselves when the truth is known. There is nothing wrong with saying I did something of my own volition, AS LONG AS IT IS QUALIFIED IAMBIGUOUS. It does not mean I did something of my own free will, because there is no such thing.

peacegirl wrote:You haven't the slightest clue what this discovery is about.

iambiguous wrote:Tell that to nature. And then have nature explain this...

I am asking YOU, not nature, to please be a better investigator rather than fight me tooth and nail, so that I can explain the two-sided equation. The knowledge that man does not have free will IS NOT THE DISCOVERY, it is the gateway to the discovery.

peacegirl wrote:Volition and desire are out of our control, which means the choice of one's own volition is not free, although in conversation it's okay to say I did this of own volition or desire, which does not me[an] you had free will.

iambiguous wrote:...to me. It's like hearing something that I would say myself!

Only its meaning being basically the opposite of what I think I mean myself here and now.

That's why defining terms is so important. We're probably on the same page and don't even know it.

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

The true mystery [for me] is how matter evolves into human brains actually able to confront human interactions self-consciously. As "I". "I" amidst the antinomy that is built right into dualism. We simply can't explain that yet. Or, rather, no one has successfully explained it to me.

peacegirl wrote: The true mystery regarding how matter evolves into human brains able to confront human interactions self-consciously is, in my mind, an intellectual contraption that is preventing you from showing any real interest in this discovery. And I realize your way of responding is all it could ever be.

But not your intellectual contraption regarding both the discovery and my reaction to it. Or the author's intellectual contrapion that encompasses the discovery itself.

Even though regarding any and all discoveries and reactions our responses are all they could ever be. No free will here [for anyone] but that doesn't make my own intellectual contraption any less the real culprit.

Thus:

iambiguous wrote:"If the immutable laws of nature are behind every single interaction between matter -- that which I understand a determined universe to be" -- then the author's discovery/principles, like my reaction to them, is settled law. The law of nature. You want me to be without the free will it takes to entertain these relationships only as you do, yet somehow I am still the one responsible for spouting mumbo-jumbo intead.

peacegirl wrote: Even if what you're saying is mumbo jumbo or not, you can't help yourself.

Clearly then you are compelled to make sense of this in a way that I am still compelled to be mystified regarding how you actually do so.

If the choices that I make are inherent, necessary components of nature's immutable laws the internal and external are just two inextricable sides of nature's coin.

peacegirl wrote:I’m not disagreeing with that. But you’re still not understanding the distinction that creates the two sides.

iambiguous wrote:Well, why don't you tap nature's immutable laws of matter on the shoulder, and inquire as to why I am not understanding this.

peacegirl wrote: It's not up to me.

Exactly. It's up to nature having evolved into my brain to "choose" to make this quip and your brain having to "choose" to react to it only as you must. We just don't know how the laws of matter evolving into life evolving into human consciousness actually does accomplish this. If all matter here is in fact determined.

peacegirl wrote: I'm not even disagreeing with the fact that nature's immutable laws are immutable. But you refuse to understand that nature (as described as a separate entity, not you as nature) cannot force a choice on you. Only when you permit a choice to be made, CAN IT BE MADE. Nature can't say, "No iambiguous, that choice is not in the plan. You MUST make this choice.

Or: Only when nature's immutable laws of matter permits my brain to not refuse to understand will all of this become clearer to me.

And nature doesn't say anything. It simply unfolds only as it must based on whatever the final explanation might be going back to the final explanation for existence itself.

And how am "I" not inextricably intertwined in nature or of nature itself?

peacegirl wrote:Who cares if that’s how the aliens perceive us earthlings as making free choices when we’re not? What’s your point?

iambiguous wrote:My point is this: that what any of us care about here in our determined part of the universe is only that which nature compells us to care about. Unless you reside in an autonomous part of the unviverse in which you really do get to weigh these behaviors and choose of your own free will to react as you do.

peacegirl wrote: You still don't get it. YOU (the "I" that gets to choose) does not mean you are separate from the immutable laws of nature that compel you to choose what you MUST choose in the direction of greater satisfaction.

Also: I still lack the free will to not "dont get it" too. Right? Just as I still lack the free will to choose which direction "I" is compelled to go in order to be in sync with what nature compels ny greater satisfaction to be.

Which [necessarily] brings me back around to this:

iambiguous wrote:You speak [over and over again] of my "willingness" to do things...just as the free will folks would. And I'm still utterly mystified as to how this "works" for you in your head. Something about "once you choose something" it can never be changed. As though that isn't how it would work even in an autonomous universe. The point isn't whether a choice made is locked in, it's whether it was ever really a choice at all. Or only a "choice" embedded in the illusion of freedom that nature has somehow made possible having evolved [as matter] into the profound mystery that is human consciousness itself.

peacegirl wrote: It depends how you interpret the word choice. We are able to contemplate options, which many call choice, but our choice is never free because we can only go in one direction; therefore it is an illusion.

But that depends on whether or not nature's immutable laws compel me to interpret it only as I must. In other words, whether in fact my choice here is or is not just the psychological illusion of actual autonomous freedom.

peacegirl wrote: All of human wants, desires, sense of satisfaction, etc, are compelled by nature. The only thing I'm trying to get you to see is that nature does not cause you to do anything, as if nature is something outside of yourself with a software program already set before you make a choice.

Again: You or someone else here either will or will not be compelled to reconfigure these words such that I am then compelled to understand how nature compelling all these things is different from nature causing them.

I'm responsible for flooring the accelerator because I wanted to. And I wanted to because [for whatever reason] it reflected my greater sense of satisfaction at the time. And nature compelled all of this. But that's different from nature causing it all to happen. Why? Because, unlike the acclerator, unable to "choose" to be floored, I can "choose" to floor it. And in "choosing" this I may well be wholly in sync with nature's laws of matter... but somehow there is a "break" here between me and nature.

Thus, from my point of view, it is you who somehow construe "I" as being apart from nature. Given my own understanding of determinism, the human brain is just the latest [and seemingly most extraordinary] manifestation of nature itself.

peacegirl wrote:Evil is part of our present narrative but not part of our future narrative! I know you don’t believe me. Oh well!

iambiguous wrote:Over and again: In your own rendition of "no free will" it is vital to be able to make that distinction between good and evil. We have no free will, but: But that revolves around the fact that once we make a choice to be either good or evil that can never change.

peacegirl wrote: It's important to focus on good and evil (hurt) because that's the issue iambiguous. Compatibilists and libertarians are not interested in what you chose for breakfast. They are interested in what you did that they believe you didn't have to do, and that involves doing something that society considers a wrongdoing.

I still don't know exactly how this is all understood by compatibilists, but the libertarians that I have bumped into over the years are interested only in insisting that we do have the freedom to choose what we have for breakfast. And, in turn, that we are free to choose for ourselves what society must prescribe as good behavior because we are free in turn to choose to base that on reason. Their own of course. Only, unlike me, they don't call this taking an existential leap to particular sets of political prejudices rooted in dasein.

Then [for me] the question becomes this: Am I actually any more free to choose my own moral narrative?

Which always takes me back to the gap between what I think is true "here and now" and all that can be known [must be known] about existence itself to order to know if in fact I can freely choose to decide this for myself.

The part you just shrug off as not irrelevant to the stuff we do here on planet Earth. Or, rather, so it still seems to me.

iambiguous wrote:...from my own understanding of determinism, good and evil reflect only the embodiment of a human mind able to convince itself psychologically that the behaviors we are ever compelled to "choose", are still understood by us "in our head" as though we really were free to choose good instead of evil.

peacegirl wrote: I agree. We are not free to choose good over evil if evil is what we prefer for reasons that may not be understood by psychologists. Free will is the illusion and that is why compatibilism doesn't fly.

We both agree. Until we get to the part about the things that we "prefer". Here [for me] they are just another necessary component of "I" embodied in consciousness necessarily embodied in a brain that is necessarily the embodiment of the laws of matter having unfolded necessarily into the evolution of life here on Earth.

For you, however, those preferences are the embodiment of nature in a way I am still unable to grasp. And presumably because nature compels me still not to grasp it.

This part:

iambiguous wrote:There can be no real substantive/existential good and evil because all of our "choices" can only ever be in sync with that which nature compels us to think, feel, say and do.

peacegirl wrote: That is true, but if we can veer in a different direction creating the desire (but still in the direction of greater satisfaction) to choose what is not evil (hurt) and prefer choosing good (not hurting anyone), that is a very good thing.

"That is true, but..." But, somehow, the part after the "but", is seen by you as more reasonable than my own rendition of the inherent relationship between nature, wants, satisfactions, and "I".

With neither of us really able to go much beyond these intellectual contraptions embedded existentially in dasein rather than in any actual substantive proof we can offer to those still straddling the fence.

Me being one of them myself.

Thus:

iambiguous wrote:Somehow in your head you want and you get it both ways. No free will...but evil is still around.

peacegirl wrote: Evil is still around because people still prefer evil, for whatever reason. The only way peace can come about is if people don't prefer evil in preference to good.

The reason they still prefer it is because nature compels them to. Just as nature compelled the human brain to create this psychological state whereby some are able to convince themselves that good and evil are actually embedded in behaviors that we freely choose. And it's only because nature compels them to think like this that they are able to believe in turn that good and evil are not just illusions embedded in the laws of matter having evolved into brains into minds able to make this distinction.

For you everything revolves around how we "decide" things that mindless matter is not able to. Even if those decisions result in matter unfolding just the way it unfolds in interactions between mindless matter: only as it must. Thus...

Earthquakes don't "choose" to create the environment that actually brings them into existence. And nature might one day actually compel us to "choose" to prevent them.

But if won't be because we could have chosen autonomously not to prevent them and, of our own volition, freely decided to prevent them instead. Not given the manner in which I understand choice here in a determined universe.

peacegirl wrote: I agree with you.

But...

Then around and around we go. But where we stop everyone knows. After all, they could not have freely chosen not to.

iambiguous wrote:I am less in nature than I am a part of nature. It's just the most mindboggling part of all. After all, how the fuck did matter manage to accomplish this?!! Most insist it is God of course. But I don't believe in God. But I don't know if I don't believe in Him only because I was never actually able to choose freely to believe in Him.

peacegirl wrote: It doesn't matter for the purposes of this knowledge why we came to be the way we are.

Of course it matters why. If we don't know why something exists rather than nothing and at all, and why it exists as it does and not some other way, how can we realistically ascribe meaning to our own lives?

How can the "purpose of this knowledge" not be profoundly entangled in this most fundamental inquiry? That our "I" does in fact exist seems about as close as any of us are now able to get to grappling with what we think we know about all the rest. But to just shrug off all the rest becasue the whole point seems to revolve around the comfort and consolation the author's "progressive" future provides you is something that I am not able to just shrug off myself.

I think it is basically the heart and the soul of this "discovery" for you. In other words, what its existence is able to sustain psychologically "in your head" insofar as it anchors your own "I" to some grand and optimistic vision of the human condition. If less now than in the future.

I see it more or less as your own rendition of God and religion.

iamiguous wrote:Over and over again you insist [from my frame of mind] that we take what we want to do out of the loop. As though the laws of nature do not compel some to think that what they want to do they want to do of their own volition. While others are compelled to believe that they "choose" to want what they do.

peacegirl wrote:How can a person choose to want what they do? They either want or they don't want, which is not of their choosing.

iamiguous wrote:Exactly. Well, at least until you attempt to explain how, when you take this "general description" out of your head, it is implicated in the actual choices/"choices" that we make.

Consequently...

...as though the things that we want and desire are somehow out of nature's loop. Volition and desire being at one with nature but somehow just different enough to persuade enough people to embrace the author's discovery and thus usher in the author's own understanding of a progressive future.

peacegirl wrote: People can believe anything they want.

No, not if the laws of matter embedded in the human brain compel them to want to believe only what they must.

peacegirl wrote: They can even believe that one plus one is three until they begin to build a bridge based on bad math and it collapses.

Yes, but in the either/or world the laws of matter compel only one reality for all of us. The crucial distinction here [for me] is in comparing the building of that bridge with attempts to understand if the will to build it is or is not free.

The bridge either stays up or for those who insist that 1 + 1 = 3, it will never be built in the first place. But where is the equivalent of this proof in regards to the determinism debate. Where is the solid argument/hard evidence that is the equivalent of the standing bridge?

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

The true mystery [for me] is how matter evolves into human brains actually able to confront human interactions self-consciously. As "I". "I" amidst the antinomy that is built right into dualism. We simply can't explain that yet. Or, rather, no one has successfully explained it to me.

peacegirl wrote: The true mystery regarding how matter evolves into human brains able to confront human interactions self-consciously is, in my mind, an intellectual contraption that is preventing you from showing any real interest in this discovery. And I realize your way of responding is all it could ever be.

iambiguous wrote:But not your intellectual contraption regarding both the discovery and my reaction to it. Or the author's intellectual contrapion that encompasses the discovery itself.

Even though regarding any and all discoveries and reactions our responses are all they could ever be. No free will here [for anyone] but that doesn't make my own intellectual contraption any less the real culprit.

Do you call genuine discoveries intellectual contraptions?

iambiguous wrote:Thus:

"If the immutable laws of nature are behind every single interaction between matter -- that which I understand a determined universe to be" -- then the author's discovery/principles, like my reaction to them, is settled law. The law of nature. You want me to be without the free will it takes to entertain these relationships only as you do, yet somehow I am still the one responsible for spouting mumbo-jumbo intead.

peacegirl wrote: Even if what you're saying is mumbo jumbo or not, you can't help yourself.

iambiguous wrote:Clearly then you are compelled to make sense of this in a way that I am still compelled to be mystified regarding how you actually do so.

Maybe that wasn't the right word to use because for the most part you are making sense. It's just that sometimes it feels like you are using the phrase "being in sync with the laws of matter" to keep the discussion stuck. I get frustrated. I know both of us are only responding as we must.

If the choices that I make are inherent, necessary components of nature's immutable laws the internal and external are just two inextricable sides of nature's coin.

peacegirl wrote:I’m not disagreeing with that. But you’re still not understanding the distinction that creates the two sides.

iambiguous wrote:Well, why don't you tap nature's immutable laws of matter on the shoulder, and inquire as to why I am not understanding this.

peacegirl wrote: It's not up to me.

iambiguous wrote:Exactly. It's up to nature having evolved into my brain to "choose" to make this quip and your brain having to "choose" to react to it only as you must. We just don't know how the laws of matter evolving into life evolving into human consciousness actually does accomplish this. If all matter here is in fact determined.

I am only trying to show that where man is concerned, his will is not free. The rest is superfluous for the purpose of this discussion. When you say that nature made you do it the implication is that you really didn't want to do it but nature forced you to do it. This is a big deal because it's leading to confusion in this longstanding debate, and as long as there is, there will be no reconciliation of the two opposing principles of doing something of one's own accord, and doing something not of one's own free will. These two camps, when reconciled, have the power to change our world for the better.

peacegirl wrote: I'm not even disagreeing with the fact that nature's immutable laws are immutable. But you refuse to understand that nature (as described as a separate entity, not you as nature) cannot force a choice on you. Only when you permit a choice to be made, CAN IT BE MADE. Nature can't say, "No iambiguous, that choice is not in the plan. You MUST make this choice.

iambiguous wrote:Or: Only when nature's immutable laws of matter permits my brain to not refuse to understand will all of this become clearer to me.

Nature's immutable laws permits your brain to do what it does, but again you are sidetracking your responsibility by saying the laws made you do something but only if you wanted to. The laws of matter (or nature) that we are all part of direct our brains to have certain preferences based on many factors including our upbringing, our education, our background, our genetics, our capacities, our interests, our experiences, etc., but you (the self that encloses your brain) is the one making the choice therefore YOU are responsible for that choice. The only reason this debate is important is due to the ramifications that follow.

iambiguous wrote:And nature doesn't say anything. It simply unfolds only as it must based on whatever the final explanation might be going back to the final explanation for existence itself. And how am "I" not inextricably intertwined in nature or of nature itself?

You are intertwined. Who said otherwise? We are part of the causal chain but the word "cause" is creating great confusion which goes back to the definition of determinism that most people use. Nothing causes you to do what you do, you simply find greater satisfaction from one moment to the next, and when there are meaningful options it appears that you are free to choose either/or, but in reality, you are not. You MUST choose the one that offers you, based on your analysis, the best choice in your eyes, but you are not caused to do anything if it's not your choice to do. Language can cause confusion but it's so important to get it right.

peacegirl wrote:Who cares if that’s how the aliens perceive us earthlings as making free choices when we’re not? What’s your point?

iambiguous wrote:My point is this: that what any of us care about here in our determined part of the universe is only that which nature compells us to care about. Unless you reside in an autonomous part of the unviverse in which you really do get to weigh these behaviors and choose of your own free will to react as you do.

peacegirl wrote: You still don't get it. YOU (the "I" that gets to choose) does not mean you are separate from the immutable laws of nature that compel you to choose what you MUST choose in the direction of greater satisfaction.

iambiguous wrote:Also: I still lack the free will to not "dont get it" too. Right?

Right. You don't have the free will to not "not get it" but you could get it later if the laws of your nature compel you to want to get it.

iambiguous wrote: Just as I still lack the free will to choose which direction "I" is compelled to go in order to be in sync with what nature compels ny greater satisfaction to be.

True. All I am saying is that nothing can make you do anything you don't want to do. This ability to resist what you don't want to do is also in the direction of greater satisfaction so there is no contradiction here.

“It’s amazing, all my life I have believed man’s will is free but forthe first time I can actually see that his will is not free.”

Another friend commented: “You may be satisfied but I’m not.The definition of determinism is the philosophical and ethicaldoctrine that man’s choices, decisions and actions are decided byantecedent causes, inherited or environmental, acting upon hischaracter. According to this definition we are not given a choicebecause we are being caused to do what we do by a previous event orcircumstance. But I know for a fact that nothing can make me dowhat I make up my mind not to do — as you just mentioned amoment ago. If I don’t want to do something, nothing, notenvironment, heredity, or anything else you care to throw in can makeme do it because over this I have absolute control. Since I can’t bemade to do anything against my will, doesn’t this make my will free?And isn’t it a contradiction to say that man’s will is not free yetnothing can make him do what he doesn’t want to do?”

“How about that, he brought out something I never would havethought of.”

All he said was that you can lead a horse to water but you can’tmake him drink, which is undeniable, however, though it is amathematical law that nothing can compel man to do to another whathe makes up his mind not to do — this is an extremely crucial point— he is nevertheless under a compulsion during every moment of hisexistence to do everything he does. This reveals, as your friend justpointed out, that man has absolute control over the former butabsolutely none over the latter because he must constantly move inthe direction of greater satisfaction.

iambiguous wrote:Which [necessarily] brings me back around to this:

You speak [over and over again] of my "willingness" to do things...just as the free will folks would. And I'm still utterly mystified as to how this "works" for you in your head. Something about "once you choose something" it can never be changed. As though that isn't how it would work even in an autonomous universe. The point isn't whether a choice made is locked in, it's whether it was ever really a choice at all. Or only a "choice" embedded in the illusion of freedom that nature has somehow made possible having evolved [as matter] into the profound mystery that is human consciousness itself.

We have a choice the moment we contemplate two or more options, but a free choice is an illusion because we can only one possible option can be actualized. They are not of equal value therefore, once a choice is made, the other option was never a possibility.

peacegirl wrote: It depends how you interpret the word choice. We are able to contemplate options, which many call choice, but our choice is never free because we can only go in one direction; therefore it is an illusion.

iambiguous wrote:But that depends on whether or not nature's immutable laws compel me to interpret it only as I must. In other words, whether in fact my choice here is or is not just the psychological illusion of actual autonomous freedom.

How can you be free if you could never do otherwise? But that doesn't mean your fate is set in stone where you do nothing because of the belief that you can't do anything to change your fate.

peacegirl wrote: All of human wants, desires, sense of satisfaction, etc, are compelled by nature. The only thing I'm trying to get you to see is that nature does not cause you to do anything, as if nature is something outside of yourself with a software program already set before you make a choice.

iambiguous wrote:Again: You or someone else here either will or will not be compelled to reconfigure these words such that I am then compelled to understand how nature compelling all these things is different from nature causing them.

The two words are very similar but they have to be used in context. If I say, "he caused the accident" what I mean is that he was compelled to drive 60 mph. in a 30 mph road in the rain. But if I say nature caused him to do what he did, I am shifting the responsibility for the accident to nature, unless you are meaning that his heredity and environment were such that he was compelled to make that choice, of his own free will or volition, because he wanted to. Please don't get confused how I use the word free will. The author used the phrase "he was compelled, of his own free will (or volition)" throughout the book to mean, he did something because he wanted to, but this in no way means his will was free. That's why these terms have to be clarified.

iambiguous wrote:I'm responsible for flooring the accelerator because I wanted to. And I wanted to because [for whatever reason] it reflected my greater sense of satisfaction at the time. And nature compelled all of this. But that's different from nature causing it all to happen. Why? Because, unlike the acclerator, unable to "choose" to be floored, I can "choose" to floor it. And in "choosing" this I may well be wholly in sync with nature's laws of matter... but somehow there is a "break" here between me and nature.

There is no break at all. It's okay to say nature made you do it if you qualify it by saying what you just said. You chose to floor the accelerator because you wanted to, and this choice to speed up rather than slow down (now that it's been made) could not have been otherwise.

iambiguous wrote:Thus, from my point of view, it is you who somehow construe "I" as being apart from nature. Given my own understanding of determinism, the human brain is just the latest [and seemingly most extraordinary] manifestation of nature itself.

It really is. And it's even more amazing how these two principles come together to create a new environmental condition which affects behavior.

peacegirl wrote:Evil is part of our present narrative but not part of our future narrative! I know you don’t believe me. Oh well!

iambiguous wrote:Over and again: In your own rendition of "no free will" it is vital to be able to make that distinction between good and evil. We have no free will, but: But that revolves around the fact that once we make a choice to be either good or evil that can never change.

That is true. But we can prevent the desire to be evil. What I mean by evil is a hurt to another that he doesn't want done to himself. Obviously good and bad are relative terms. What you might consider good for you, I might consider bad.

peacegirl wrote: It's important to focus on good and evil (hurt) because that's the issue iambiguous. Compatibilists and libertarians are not interested in what you chose for breakfast. They are interested in what you did that they believe you didn't have to do, and that involves doing something that society considers a wrongdoing.

iambiguous wrote:I still don't know exactly how this is all understood by compatibilists, but the libertarians that I have bumped into over the years are interested only in insisting that we do have the freedom to choose what we have for breakfast. And, in turn, that we are free to choose for ourselves what society must prescribe as good behavior because we are free in turn to choose to base that on reason. Their own of course. Only, unlike me, they don't call this taking an existential leap to particular sets of political prejudices rooted in dasein.

They decide what is a free choice, and what is not, so they can hold people responsible for what society judges to be wrong. What they are saying is if you didn't reason the way society expects you to reason, you are to be found guilty and punished. Compatibilists are no different. They are only trying to make it appear that free will and determinism are compatible when they aren't. They are opposites.

iambiguous wrote:Then [for me] the question becomes this: Am I actually any more free to choose my own moral narrative?

Of course you are not free to choose your own moral narrative, although there is a standard of right and wrong when it comes to hurting others. This is the exciting part because when the environmental conditions change (and there are many changes that must come about for this new world to become a reality), the laws of our nature will compel everyone to desire (in the direction of greater satisfaction) what does not hurt others.

iambiguous wrote:Which always takes me back to the gap between what I think is true "here and now" and all that can be known [must be known] about existence itself to order to know if in fact I can freely choose to decide this for myself.

The part you just shrug off as not irrelevant to the stuff we do here on planet Earth. Or, rather, so it still seems to me.

We don't have to fill this gap about knowing all that can be known about existence itself in order to know that this law of our nature, when put into practice, will prove empirically that we have no choice in the matter of hurting or not hurting others, or gaining at their expense. If will was free we could choose to hurt others under any condition, but that's not possible.

iambiguous wrote:...from my own understanding of determinism, good and evil reflect only the embodiment of a human mind able to convince itself psychologically that the behaviors we are ever compelled to "choose", are still understood by us "in our head" as though we really were free to choose good instead of evil.

peacegirl wrote: I agree. We are not free to choose good over evil if evil is what we prefer for reasons that may not be understood by psychologists. Free will is the illusion and that is why compatibilism doesn't fly.

iambiguous wrote:We both agree. Until we get to the part about the things that we "prefer". Here [for me] they are just another necessary component of "I" embodied in consciousness necessarily embodied in a brain that is necessarily the embodiment of the laws of matter having unfolded necessarily into the evolution of life here on Earth.

For you, however, those preferences are the embodiment of nature in a way I am still unable to grasp. And presumably because nature compels me still not to grasp it.

Preference is the embodiment of our nature. There really is no distinction. But preference is part of the human condition so when I say "we prefer this over that", this description is accurate. We are the ones doing the deliberating, the preferring, and the choosing, therefore WE are responsible for making those choices. I am not referring to moral responsibility. How can we be held morally responsible when we could not help ourselves?

iambiguous wrote:This part:

There can be no real substantive/existential good and evil because all of our "choices" can only ever be in sync with that which nature compels us to think, feel, say and do.

That is true when seen in total perspective.

Because Spinoza was dissatisfied with theology’s explanation ofgood and evil, he opened the door of determinism and looked aroundquite a bit but did not know how to slay the fiery dragon (the greatimpasse of blame), so he pretended it wasn’t even there. He stated,“We are men, not God. Evil is really not evil when seen in totalperspective,” and he rejected the principle of an eye for an eye. WillDurant, not at all satisfied with this aspect of Spinoza’s philosophy,although he loved him dearly, could not understand how it washumanly possible to turn the other cheek in this kind of world. Healso went in and looked around very thoroughly and, he too, saw thefiery dragon but unlike Spinoza he made no pretense of itsnon-existence. He just didn’t know how to overcome the beast butrefused to agree with what common sense told him to deny. Theimplications really need no further clarification as to why free will isin power. Nobody, including Spinoza and other philosophers, everdiscovered what it meant that man’s will is not free because they neverunlocked the second door which leads to my discovery. The belief infree will was compelled to remain in power until the present timebecause no one had conclusive proof that determinism was true, norcould anyone slay the fiery dragon (the impasse of blame) which seemed like an impossible feat.

<snip>

Christ also receivedincursions of thought from this same principle which compelled himto turn the other cheek and remark as he was being nailed to thecross, “They know not what they do,” forgiving his enemies even inthe moment of death. How was it possible for him to blame themwhen he knew that they were not responsible? But they knew whatthey were doing and he could not stop them even by turning the othercheek. Religion was compelled to believe that God was not responsiblefor the evil in the world, whereas Spinoza and Christ believed correctlythat there was no such thing as evil when seen in total perspective.But how was it possible, except for people like Christ and Spinoza, toforgive those who trespassed against them? And how was it possiblefor those who became victims of this necessary evil to look at it intotal perspective? Is it any wonder man cried out to God forunderstanding? The time has arrived to clear up all the confusion andreconcile these two opposite principles, which requires that you keepan open mind and proceed with the investigation. Let me show youhow this apparent impasse can be rephrased in terms of possibility.

peacegirl wrote: That is true, but if we can veer in a different direction creating the desire (but still in the direction of greater satisfaction) to choose what is not evil (hurt) and prefer choosing good (not hurting anyone), that is a very good thing.

iambiguous wrote:"That is true, but..." But, somehow, the part after the "but", is seen by you as more reasonable than my own rendition of the inherent relationship between nature, wants, satisfactions, and "I".

That is because you don't yet see how this paradigm shift can alter one's wants and satisfactions to doing only those things which hurt no one.

iambiguous wrote:With either of us really able to go much beyond these intellectual contraptions embedded existentially in dasein rather than in any actual substantive proof we can offer to those still straddling the fence.

Me being one of them myself.

Thus:

Somehow in your head you want and you get it both ways. No free will...but evil is still around.

peacegirl wrote: Evil is still around because people still prefer evil, for whatever reason. The only way peace can come about is if people don't prefer evil in preference to good.

iambiguous wrote:The reason they still prefer it is because nature compels them to. Just as nature compelled the human brain to create this psychological state whereby some are able to convince themselves that good and evil are actually embedded in behaviors that we freely choose. And it's only because nature compels them to think like this that they are able to believe in turn that good and evil are not just illusions embedded in the laws of matter having evolved into brains into minds able to make this distinction.

That is true. Everything up to now was necessary, even those who believed we are free to choose good over evil, and are therefore deserving of punishment if the wrong choice is made. It is quite paradoxical that giving up control actually creates more control.

iambiguous wrote:But...

Then around and around we go. But where we stop everyone knows. After all, they could not have freely chosen not to.

I am less in nature than I am a part of nature. It's just the most mindboggling part of all. After all, how the fuck did matter manage to accomplish this?!! Most insist it is God of course. But I don't believe in God. But I don't know if I don't believe in Him only because I was never actually able to choose freely to believe in Him.

The author uses God throughout the book but he doesn't mean a personal God. It really doesn't matter whether you do or you don't believe in any design to the universe or a personal God. What matters is that this law of our nature can prevent what blame and punishment could not accomplish.

Some people may be offended that the word God is used throughoutthe book and conclude that this is a religious work. Perhaps the ‘G’word even makes them want to shut down and disconnect from whatis being said. This would be unfortunate. As you carefully read thetext you will see that the word God (often referred to as ‘He’) is simplya symbol pointing to the laws that govern our universe.

peacegirl wrote: It doesn't matter for the purposes of this knowledge why we came to be the way we are.

iambiguous wrote:Of course it matters why. If we don't know why something exists rather than nothing and at all, and why it exists as it does and not some other way, how can we realistically ascribe meaning to our own lives?

I'm not saying it doesn't matter; it just doesn't apply to this discussion. I'm trying to stay on track.

iambiguous wrote:How can the "purpose of this knowledge" not be profoundly entangled in this most fundamental inquiry? That our "I" does in fact exist seems about as close as any of us are now able to get to grappling with what we think we know about all the rest. But to just shrug off all the rest becasue the whole point seems to revolve around the comfort and consolation the author's "progressive" future provides you is something that I am not able to just shrug off myself.

I think it is basically the heart and the soul of this "discovery" for you. In other words, what its existence is able to sustain psychologically "in your head" insofar as it anchors your own "I" to some grand and optimistic vision of the human condition. If less now than in the future.

I see it more or less as your own rendition of God and religion.

This book is not religious. Now you are making assumptions about the author, which isn't fair.

iamiguous wrote:Over and over again you insist [from my frame of mind] that we take what we want to do out of the loop. As though the laws of nature do not compel some to think that what they want to do they want to do of their own volition. While others are compelled to believe that they "choose" to want what they do.

peacegirl wrote:How can a person choose to want what they do? They either want or they don't want, which is not of their choosing.

iamiguous wrote:Exactly. Well, at least until you attempt to explain how, when you take this "general description" out of your head, it is implicated in the actual choices/"choices" that we make.

Consequently...

...as though the things that we want and desire are somehow out of nature's loop. Volition and desire being at one with nature but somehow just different enough to persuade enough people to embrace the author's discovery and thus usher in the author's own understanding of a progressive future.

Nothing is out of nature's loop, but we now have knowledge that can help our world and still be within nature's loop. just like all discoveries that advance our world can do.

peacegirl wrote: People can believe anything they want.

iambiguous wrote:No, not if the laws of matter embedded in the human brain compel them to want to believe only what they must.

Let me clarify: People have the choice to believe or not to believe, but obviously what they want to believe and therefore what they choose to believe is not of their own free will.

peacegirl wrote: They can even believe that one plus one is three until they begin to build a bridge based on bad math and it collapses.

iambiguous wrote:Yes, but in the either/or world the laws of matter compel only one reality for all of us. The crucial distinction here [for me] is in comparing the building of that bridge with attempts to understand if the will to build it is or is not free.

The will to build is where desire comes from which is also part of our nature. To want or desire to do something is what will is, but whatever we do, it is never free.

iambiguous wrote:The bridge either stays up or for those who insist that 1 + 1 = 3, it will never be built in the first place. But where is the equivalent of this proof in regards to the determinism debate. Where is the solid argument/hard evidence that is the equivalent of the standing bridge?

I was only using that example to show that when we learn the truth (scientifically speaking), humanity progresses. I haven't gotten into the two-sided equation yet, which is the bringing together of the two principles in Chapter One; that man's will is not free and that nothing can make man do what he makes up his mind not to do. This brings us to Chapter Two, if you're interested.

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

I appreciate your invitation, but I have to decline because there is no possible way you can prove freedom of the will since it requires you to do the impossible, which is to go back in time, undo what you have already done, to PROVE that at that exact moment in time you could have chosen otherwise. After all, freedom of the will means the freedom to choose all options equally. But if you don't understand the true meaning of determinism, you may feel threatened by it unnecessarily. It does not mean denying the self or abdicating responsibility. It increases it!

﻿Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)